credit: spacepolicyonline.com / caption: the schedule slide that will come to haunt Obama's flexible path
In a president George W. Bush-like moment NASA administrator Charles Bolden is reported to have said: "it is the uneasiest thing we could do". Uneasiest? Don't you mean it is one of the hardest things you could do?
And Bolden might not want to admit it but his allegedly executable non-Constellation programme is ultimately, in capabilities terms, just as challenging and probably unexecutable as Bush's Constellation in technology and funding
Why? We now know that president Barack Obama's plan for NASA is to work towards a 2025 asteroid rendezvous and a mid-2030s Mars mission that would not land. Constellation had Mars as an aspiration but its goal was to begin Moon missions from 2018 with a landing soon after and the slow build up of a permanent lunar base from the early 2020s
Surely they are very different? Look again
The asteroid mission is, so we're told, going to take months of travel very likely beyond the Moon. It will need a crew vehicle to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, it will need a habitat module for the journey out to the asteroid. To go beyond lunar orbit and come back will require a large Earth departure stage and asteroid departure stage, or at least a large propellant tank. For mass savings the propellant will probably need to be cryogenic, requiring good insulation technology. It will need an in-space manouvering engine system to fly in formation with the asteroid. It will need RADAR or LIDAR for that formation flying and if the intention is to land the habitat, crew vehicle stack will need its own legs and an engine that acts as a "descent" and ascent thruster. Or this asteroid lander would have its own "descent" and ascent stages. Once on the surface or in close formation the stack will need good thermal management as it passes in and out of the harsh sunlight. If the plan is to land the asteroid is likely to tumble through space making landing more difficult. This will require some sort of automatic manouvering system to compensate for that multiple axes movement
To get this lander-habitat-crew vehicle stack beyond Moon orbit it will need to be launched into low Earth orbit as one spacecraft or assembled from its constituent parts in LEO. Its not this blog posts intention to detail the physical characteristics of these craft but to show what capabilities are needed. But it can be summised that the crew vehicle could probably be launched by a modified EELV-type booster but the departure stages for Earth and asteroid and the habitat, with its manouvering/descent/ascent engines and all their propellant tanks are going to be far larger. Perhaps they would need a heavy lift rocket, maybe the habitat and departures stages could be launched propellant empty and refuelled in orbit? This architectural issue will be address at the end of this blog post
For now, how is this asteroidship just like Constellation's Orion crew exploration vehicle, Altair stack?
Orion was designed to go to the Moon ultimately for a seven month mission, it would enter lunar orbit and operate automaticaly while its crew descended to the surface in Altair. Initially the missons would be for a week or a gfew weeks operating form the lander. However the crew would ultimately live on the Moonbase once it has adequate accomodation
Like the asteroidship Constellation has a crew vehicle capable of long endurance in deep space and able to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Like the asteroid ship a habitat, in this case called the Altair lunar lander, will be used and Altair's pressurised section and life support systems would have laid the groundwork for technlogies for the Moonbase habitat modules, which were to be landed by Altair's descent stage. To reach the Moon and return from it large Earth departure and lunar departure stages are needed. Constellation's heavy lift Ares V cargo launch vehicle's upper stage was to be the EDS and Altair was to have the LDS. For mass savings the propellant has already been decided to be cryogenic, requiring good insulation technology; just like the asteroidship.
Focusing on Altair, like the asteroidship it will need RADAR or LIDAR to land on the Moon and like the habitat-crew vehicle stack it will need its own legs and its own descent and ascent stages. Once on the surface Altair and/or the Moonbase habitat modules will need good thermal management as it passes in and out of the harsh sunlight during the lunar day or is permanently in sunlight. What Altair will not need is an automatic landing, real-time adaptive manouvering system that has to cope with a tumbling landing surface
Finally, Constellation's Ares I crew launch vehicle was to launch Orion that would rendezvous with the EDS and Altair, which were orbited by Ares V
What can be seen is that the capabilities of Constellation's Orion and Altair and Ares V upper stage are all directly useful for the asteroid mission. Call it what you like but something very much like Orion and very much like Altair and very much like the Ares V EDS will fly to an asteroid whether that path is flexible with few dates or has a cast iron schedule, as cast iron as any spaceflight programme can be
Having demonstrated that all the technologies and the crew vehicle capabilities and in-space systems developed and in development for Constellation are completely applicable to Bolden's asteroid mission the next issue this blog post will deal with is, how to get into LEO
Do you use the Ares family or do you use other launch vehicles, launched multiple times, perhaps in tandem with in-orbit fuel resupply?
For the Ares family you are using a permanently manned spaceport with personnel and equipment specific to the Ares rockets. That workforce will launch two Ares Is and two Ares Vs every year
The other option is to use a modified existing booster for the crew vehicle. But for that booster to have a higher flight rate than Ares I, and therefore better economics, it will have to be able to launch a deep space crew vehicle although its primary commercial mission may be for smaller payloads.
If the EDS and habitat cum asteriod lander can be launched by the deep space crew vehicle's booster all to the good. Perhaps this mystery universal booster can also launch the fuel depots? But now you are looking at three launches for the crew vehicle, habitat and EDS and another three, one would imagine, for three "fuel depot spacecraft" to launch the maximum possible propellant to resupply the aforementioned vehicles. Six launches instead of Constellation's two and six LEO rendezvous - best of luck with that mission control!
Either way this universal rocket does not sound like a booster that already exists. A human rated vehicle that is probably going to have to put at least 45,000kg, the Altair's mass, into LEO. This assumes for the asteroid mission that the larger beyond lunar orbit propellant assembly makes up the difference in mass where the habitat cum lander is not fuelled on launch (unlike Altair) but has on-orbit fuel resupply. The conclusion can only be that a new booster has to be designed and developed
The Ares V upper stage technologies are clearly already needed for the asteroidship, so isn't it obvious that the Ares V first stage and solid rocket booster systems are too? Yet Bolden is prepared to wait another five years, to 2015, before making a decision for the glaringly obvious
One last point about the economics of all this. Much has been made that the Constellation programme was proposing only two flights a year to the Moon for crew transport for the permanent human presence of a research station, probably at a southern lunar pole (It should be said that many more Ares V launches for cargo bearing Altair's would be needed but that was never part of the argument)
So what does Obama and Bolden's plan have to say about this economic batch quantity of launches its proponents criticised Consetllation for? Their plan is proposing one mission, one flight to an asteroid, in 2025 after spending billions and using all the technology that would have been needed for Constellation anyway. And the only apparent advantage is that a multiple launch on-orbit rendezvous and fuel resupply architecture might make better use of ground infrastructure and launch personnel, if you can develop this universal rocket
With all that in mind what makes the Obama/Bolden plan so much better than Constellation? At the beginning of this blog post there is a chart that was used by Bolden's deputy Lori Garver at a recent conference and it gives approximate dates for everything envisaged under the Bolden plan
What can be seen in the chart is that despite NASA's budget increases being smaller than those recommended by the US human spaceflight review, Bolden's plan will need to have all the Constellation systems for the asteroidship and launch it at the same time NASA would have been setting up a Moonbase; and fund the International Space Station extension to 2020 and beyond; have flagship, and "small", technology demonstations; start commercial crew services; research exploration technology and send robotic precursor missions to, one assumes asteroids and Mars
Who is unexecutable now Mr Bolden?
on April 21, 2010 5:22 PM | Reply
agreed: http://bit.ly/cgIjDv
on April 21, 2010 5:28 PM | Reply
.
an asteroids trip needs a bigger EDS with a much more complex Altair lander (both used once) and a 400 tons payload Ares-7 (again, used once) to send the full hardware to LEO
.
fortunately, the 2025 "asteroid mission" should happen 15 years (and 2-3 US presidents) away from now...
.
on April 21, 2010 5:33 PM | Reply
the very risky, expensive, complex and useless asteroid's mission looks much more absurd when you think that it can be easily accomplished with a small and cheap robotic probe
on April 21, 2010 8:37 PM | Reply
GM, i don't know where you're getting your numbers from.
1. An Asteroid mission's hab/rendezvous module would be far less complex than Altair. For an asteroid mission, even a large one such as Eros, the surface gravity is in the thousandths of a G. So little that NEAR-Shoemaker soft-landed on Eros with it's station-keeping thrusters safely despite never having been designed to do so. All the Asteroid mission needs is an inflatable hab with an airlock and radar.
2. The amount of Delta-V required for an asteroid rendezvous and return is substantially less than a lunar mission unless you're trying to do it in some crazy tight timetable. If launched from an EML construction point, it's vastly less.
How do those two come out to 400 tons of spacecraft?
on April 21, 2010 10:28 PM | Reply
So, let me get this straight...
Cancel Constellation, a technically viable program with firm goals and a plan to achieve them, replace it with a vague outline of something that looks strikingly similar to the program of record, but abandons 6 years of work and $9 billion to start over, risks American leadership in space, and may cost just as much or more than the original while at the same time downgrading to lesser capabilities and pursuing a more relaxed schedule best described as "notional".
Ah, politics.
on April 22, 2010 3:37 AM | Reply
Hi Rob,
You build a wobbly construct out of a plethora of guesses and assumptions and then claim it stands as conclusive evidence that there is nothing better than Ares I/V/Orion. I don't think it will hold up to counter argument.
For example, you argue that you need basically the same elements for an asteroid mission as a Moon mission. Well, this ULA paper describes a lunar exploration architecture built only with Atlas V and Centaur components:
http://ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdf
No HLV is needed at all in this approach. If this would work for the Moon then it follows it should work with an asteroid mission.
It's true that this requires multiple launches for filling fuel depots and assembly operations. Is that a horror to be avoided at all costs? No, it is an opportunity for low costs that should be strongly embraced.
If humans are to have any future in space, they will need high launch rates and routine in-space assembly operations. However large you build your HLV, there will always come a point where you need structures larger than it can handle. We should start now to learn how to build in space rather than wasting fortunes on development of bigger and bigger launchers that will fly seldom and never pay back their investment.
Perhaps, as Jeff Greason has argued, there is a sweet spot for mass and faring volume with a HLV in the 60-80mT range. But even in that case a super heavy ELV is feasible as discussed in the Augustine report. The fact that it will share many components with its standard HLV sibling will reduce costs.
There are many alternative exploration architectures to the one you laid out. The results of the planned technology development program could expand these alternatives even further. We don't need to decide right now what architecture to use. Let's keep our options open and not waste enormous amounts of money on a 1960s approach to exploration.
- Clark
on April 22, 2010 6:44 AM | Reply
Either the people that formulated this "plan" are somewhat lacking in the gray matter department, or they think the public can be easily fooled.
The only people - as exemplified by the impromptu visit to LC40 - that gain from this program are SpaceX and at a pinch, OSC. In the meantime LC39 will be languishing in disuse, the hardware for the SRB, ET, SSME Hydrolox engines will be scrapped.
Five years down the road we will have a repeat of the Venture Star fiasco( no other word fits so perfectly) with technology problems coupled to budgetary restraints - or worse, such developments are "not needed":as happened with the advanced tech' RS-83&84 engines in 2004/5 just prior to the announcement of the eventually canceled Constellation program.
However, these are peccadillos when compared with what I consider Obama had intended all along: the complete curtailment of U.S HSF-BEO ona permanent basis. To my mind the proposed timetable merely confirms that; with the Augustine Committee as "smoke and mirrors with the new Garver/Musk ("uneasiest" from the titular head of NASA...?!)originated plan designed for the sole purpose of making money for a new monopoly.
I await a decision that for some trumped up technical or financial reason, the OSC COTS contract is terminated much as the Rocketplane Kistler contract was, with Musk in particular, working behind the scenes to finesse yet another monopoly for his company.
America has abdicated from its' position as the pre-eminent nation in space. Perhaps they deserve that if the last 40 years of....are anything to go by. VERY sad.
on April 22, 2010 11:06 AM | Reply
The fundamental point of my blog post is that you need the same technological capabilities to do both missions. You NEED an Orion type vehicle to go to an asteroid, not a SpaceX Dragon type vehicle for example. You can't get away from that.
on April 22, 2010 11:56 AM | Reply
"less complex than Altair"
probably smaller and surely with less propellants but NOT "less complex"
also, its price could be 10+ times higher than a lunar Altair since only a couple of NEO-Altair will be built vs. dozens lunar-Altair
"How do those two come out to 400 tons of spacecraft?"
not of "spacecraft" but (great part) of PROPELLANTS
.
on April 22, 2010 11:58 AM | Reply
true, the Dragon will be a LEO-only capsule
on April 22, 2010 1:15 PM | Reply
You NEED an Orion type vehicle to go to an asteroid, not a SpaceX Dragon type vehicle for example. You can't get away from that.
No one denies that fact. But that in-space vehicle is a much less expensive part to develop than the associated launch vehicle under the old paradigm.
on April 22, 2010 2:58 PM | Reply
"You NEED an Orion type vehicle to go to an asteroid, not a SpaceX Dragon type vehicle for example. You can't get away from that."
Dragon is not intended as a deep space habitat, that is for sure. But it does not follow that the capsule used for getting to LEO and for reentry has to also serve as the in-space habitat. The Soyuz system, for example, separates these functions. (See this page
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/cev.htm
for a discussion of Griffin's mistaken insistence on both a huge and heavy 6 person capsule that must serve as a habitat as well.)
As the ULA paper shows, it also doesn't follow that an in-space transport/habitat system necessarily requires Ares I/V type of launchers.
on April 22, 2010 6:13 PM | Reply
Dragon is a deep space habitat?! I have spoken to Elon when he is in full sales man pitch and not once have I ever heard him make that claim even when he has enthusiastically spoken about reusable Falcon 9 upper stages... Sorry Clark but I think you're going way over the top there
on April 22, 2010 7:10 PM | Reply
Rob,
How closely did you read what Clark wrote? You claim he was saying, "Dragon is a deep space habitat". Instead, what he said was, "Dragon is not intended as a deep space habitat, that is for sure." Note the phrase, "not intended as", since it means he said the logical inverse of what you are implying.
on April 22, 2010 8:42 PM | Reply
Rob, he didn't say that Dragon was a deep-space habitat. Read what he wrote again.
on April 22, 2010 9:19 PM | Reply
"huge and heavy 6 person capsule"
already said TWO years ago... http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/023deadweight.html
and from 2005 on uplink.space...
.
on April 22, 2010 9:59 PM | Reply
"Dragon is a deep space habitat?! I have spoken to Elon when he is in full sales man pitch and not once have I ever heard him make that claim even when he has enthusiastically spoken about reusable Falcon 9 upper stages... Sorry Clark but I think you're going way over the top there"
You mis-read what I said. I was agreeeing with you.
"Dragon is not intended as a deep space habitat, that is for sure."
on April 22, 2010 10:27 PM | Reply
Rob, read it again. He was agreeing with you that Dragon is NOT a deep space habitat.
For what it's worth, I'm not so sure Orion is, either. It seems like a reasonable vehicle to go to the Moon in, but a year-long trip in interplanetary space? Can it store (or recycle) a year of consumables? Does it have the radiation shielding? Is there room for exercise equipment? These are the problems we need to be solving to move beyond cislunar space, and I never did see how Constellation was addressing them. Hopefully, if Obama has his way NASA will begin to spend some money on solving these problems.
on April 23, 2010 6:32 AM | Reply
Rob Coppinger said "Dragon is a deep space habitat?" - you clearly misread what was written. Clark said "Dragon is not intended as a deep space habitat, that is for sure".
I've read the Lockheed study that Clark mentioned, and I think they did a very good job using existing hardware and lots of "thinking outside of the box". Also, we built the ISS using 5M wide cargo launchers, so why can't we build exploration vehicles? Sometimes it seems like the pro-Constellation folks are just making up reasons for why "only the Ares V" can accomplish this or that.
Here's a formula I'd like to propose. If it's going to take you more to launch a program (ISS, Asteroid Mission, Mars Visitation, etc.) on existing launchers than it would take to design, test, build and launch using an HLLV, then you should pursue an HLLV. Otherwise, it doesn't make economic sense to do so. If you don't like this formula, what would you propose to determine the economics of needing a new launcher?
on April 23, 2010 9:33 PM | Reply
Rob;
I'm having a hard time "seeing" the point of your blog post...
First you state the "obvious" needs of a deep-space mission:
"The asteroid mission is, so we're told, going to take months of travel very likely beyond the Moon."
Ok this is correct as a general overview...
But the entire blog entry goes FAR south after that.
You correctly note that the "plan" will require an Earth return vehicle, but you seem to sieze upon the Constellation-version-Orion as the "only" applicable vehice for the job???
This MAY just reflect a personal "Made-in-the-USA" bias on your part but the Soyuz spacecraft is perfectly capable of doing the job and unlike Orion is a PROVEN working vehicle. You seem to have a "mad-on" over the Space-X Dragon capsule but you make the confusing "connection" somehow that the Dragon is a "habitat-module" which it is not, you then STATE that it is not, and then enfer that the Orion is? And thus superior somehow?
An "Earth-Return-Vehicle" is simply a "taxi" from point-A to point-B and is needed ONLY during two short portions of the entire flight. If pursued Orion-Lite will be capable of fullfilling the required capability for the proposed mission(s) as will Dragon. For that matter one could easily point to the DreamChaser as being suited for the mission, while it might not be as far along in development as the Dragon, it should be noted it IS as fully "developed" as the Constellation-version-Orion is.
You then continue describing what you THINK is needed for the asteroid mission while coaching all your terms in distinct speech that relates directly with Constellation architecture rather than even attempting to actually analyze the mission needs.
Yet seem to go out of your way to ONLY include Constellation based equipment without regard to exsisting or alternative possibilities. I'm rather sorry I appear to have been wrong about your impartiality.
Lets actuall examine what is needed for the proposed mission and plug in some real equipment or at least hardware that is already far beyond the development stage of the non-existant Constellation program shall we?
"it will need a habitat module for the journey out to the asteroid. To go beyond lunar orbit and come back will require a large Earth departure stage and asteroid departure stage, or at least a large propellant tank. For mass savings the propellant will probably need to be cryogenic, requiring good insulation technology. It will need an in-space manouvering engine system to fly in formation with the asteroid. It will need RADAR or LIDAR for that formation flying and if the intention is to land the habitat, crew vehicle stack will need its own legs and an engine that acts as a "descent" and ascent thruster. Or this asteroid lander would have its own "descent" and ascent stages. Once on the surface or in close formation the stack will need good thermal management as it passes in and out of the harsh sunlight. If the plan is to land the asteroid is likely to tumble through space making landing more difficult. This will require some sort of automatic manouvering system to compensate for that multiple axes movement"
Habitat: Bigelow Space Modules. Constellation equivelent? Hmmm, don't exist actually.
EDS/ADS: Off the shelf Centuar propulsion modules or better yet "Duel-Engine" Centuar. Constellation equivilent? Again we don't find anything beyond a very rudimentary "study" stage.
Cyrogenic tankage and low-boil off technology: Again, Centaur. This has been studied extensivly by LM and ULA who are quite willing and eager to build the equipment. They have already expressed high confidence in adapting off-the-shelf equipment to this purpose. It probably helps that they have been subsequently testing these technologies for most of the Centaur program life-time and don't see any technological hurdles they haven't already encountered. But one would have to have kept track of the various work they have been doing with REAL equipment (usually after the Centaur has completed its main mission) for almost 40 years.
Constellation on the other hand hadn't even finished doing preliminary design work on the ARES-1 second stage and engine, let alone anything like the paper-study Altair or ARES-V.
In-space manuevering system, RADAR/LIDAR, station keeping... You seem to want to list as many 'buzz-words' as possible while retaining some air of mystery over supposed "advanced-technology" that the mission would need and that "only" could be developed by and for the Constellation program.
And here is where the blog got even MORE confusing because, correct me if I'm wrong here, aren't YOU supposed to be somewhat an "insider" on aerospace technology? Isn't your JOB to be on top of what has or is being developed and used in various space related projects and vehicles?
So how it it that you seem to think that we need Constellation to DEVELOP systems we've been using for almost 40 years? How can YOU of all people NOT know what off-the-shelf OMS systems, computers, and sensors are available?
Worse yet I find it hard to believe that YOU didn't understand that one of the FIRST pieces of equipment that was to be developed specifically under the budget was a space-to-space Orbital Transfer Vehicle including all the systems you can't seem to identify?
(You then go off on ANOTHER tangent dealing with all the 'difficulties' of rendevous or landing on the asteroid without mentioning of course that the same capabilities that GOT you to the asteroid are required to "land" on it. Seeming to think that parking a spacecraft that is not even designed to land and originally was never intended to land on an asteroid MIGHT have shown it probably isn't as difficult as you make it out to be? I'll chalk this up to willful ignorance rather than suggesting you might think that the Shoemaker landing on Eros was all done in a Hollywood studio by a dark "space" conspirescy :o)
While you DID manage to GET the idea that the most likely crew launch vehicle would be some form of EELV, you somehow make the 'leap' that because it was a part of Constellation the ARES-1 launch vehicle is preferable? Again, if you would could you explain how an existing launch vehicle can somehow be 'inferior' to one that isn't even developed into a flight test vehicle yet? ARES-1 has never flown, never even been static fired as of yet, and that's the most DEVELOPED part of the proposed launch vehicle!
And I find that attitude the most daming part about the whole blog article. It permiates and spoils any attempt at viewing the subject rationally and renders the whole of the article less than useless. You continually refer to various pieces of proposed Constellation hardware as being the 'basis' of follow on-hardware and technology while completely ignoring the POINT that none of this "hardware" exists while hardware and technology that you insist NEEDS to be developed from it already DOES exist or is in advanced development already!
You continually layer on added "needs" that fit in with assumed capabilities of Constellation hardware (landing legs? ascent and descent stages? for an ASTEROID??) which leaves the supposed "supporting" arguments hanging in mid-air with neither support nor even any attempt to try and be realistic in the needs of a deep-space mission,
Finally you attempt to 'sum-up' the impossibility of the entire budget by pointing out that the "chart" graphic at the begining of the article "requires" all Constellation hardware to be fully developed and operational, (a point which you never managed to support in your article at all) in order to "meet" the schedule in the graphic.
If you had stopped there you MIGHT have had some shred of credibilty left as a space program observer instead you chose to solid cement your place as a whiney-space-policy-setter-wanna-be by "pointing" out that according to that same graphic:
"What can be seen in the chart is that despite NASA's budget increases being smaller than those recommended by the US human spaceflight review, Bolden's plan will need to have all the Constellation systems for the asteroidship and launch it at the same time NASA would have been setting up a Moonbase; and fund the International Space Station extension to 2020 and beyond; have flagship, and "small", technology demonstations; start commercial crew services; research exploration technology and send robotic precursor missions to, one assumes asteroids and Mars"
Yet you seem to be ignoring, or ignorant, of the FACT that there is NO such 'correlation' on the graphic. At all. Your 'asteroid-ship' isn't mentioned or shown. Worse for you all the things "NASA would have been doing" does not even slightly reflect any actual Constellation timelines or schedules!
Constellation was at last check: Going to TEST fly the ARES-1 booster UNMANNED by 2015 if possible but pushed by the Augustine panel they admited more likely 2018. The first MANNED flight was, assuming zero-safety factors applied for the flight MAYBE 2020. The first ISS operations flights would not have started until 2021 or later. The first ARES-V test flight could not be until 2025 and no actual operational capability was expected before 2030. The FIRST return-to-the-moon flight (not a landing by the way) had been pushed back to at least 2040 and Mars was no longer even ON the schedule!
I suppose it's not even a surprise that you seem to have missed Congress' decsion in the FY-2010 budget to NOT fully fund any of the Constellation development budget, including deleting all monies for the development of the Altair lander, the ARES-V launch vehicle and the majority of non-ARES-1 related hardware?
Like most people who can't find fault with the Constellation program you seem unaware not only the very serious short-comings of the program itself, but of the serious Congressional opposition to the entire program up until the President's sudden budget announcement found them scrambling to find a way to appear to 'oppose' their own policy of killing Constellation by degrees.
It does not take a lot of effort, (still seemingly to MUCH effort for some) to see that direct Congressional opposition had managed to kill the VSE/ESAS just as dead as the previous SEI program. The only difference being that today the Administration is holding Congress to their own deadline (they voted the exact date and time yet seem 'surprised' that no one is going to force them) for retiring the Shuttle. And due to Congressional opposition and budget finagling since 2004 we are left with no government manned space flight system to take over once the Shuttle is actually grounded.
(Yet those who 'complain' about it so vocally eagerly spent taxpayer money on buying entire Soyuz flights for NASA crews to the ISS for around 10 times what a TOURIST pays...)
Overall your blog entry doesn't provide any usefull information, and in fact spreads disinformation, without managing to touch on any relavant material or provide a reader with facts with which to make an informed decision for themselves. Instead it comes across as a feably attempt to appear to be "in-touch" with related events which fails miserably.
It may be that those you work for DON'T actually read what you post here, but you might want to consider that they MIGHT and take a least a minimumal amount of time to actually research the material before representing your opinions as facts.
Rand Campbell
on April 24, 2010 3:18 PM | Reply
There is so much wrong with your over long rant that I am not going to bother responding to each point. Life is too short. Suffice to say you have your religously held opinion and I have my analysis based on facts.